The Atlantic
America’s second-ever Catholic president supports abortion rights, leaving the bishops unsure about how to move forward.
March 14, 2021
Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, at a Mass held on the eve of the 2020 March for Life in Washington, D.C.Gregory A. Shemitz
Archbishop Joseph Naumann is anxious about President Joe Biden’s soul. The two men are in some ways similar: cradle Catholics born in the 1940s who witnessed John F. Kennedy become America’s first Catholic president. Both found a natural home in the Democratic Party in Naumann’s midwestern family, asking Catholics if they were Democrats was a redundancy. Naumann became a priest and Biden became a politician, but their paths really diverged over the issue of abortion. Now in his 70s, Naumann watched Biden America’s second Catholic president transform into a vocal supporter of abortion rights while competing for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Naumann runs the Archdiocese